Superbugs

With drug-resistant bacteria on the rise, even common infections that were easily controlled for decades -- such as pneumonia or urinary tract infections -- are proving trickier to treat with standard antibiotics. New drugs are desperately needed, but so are ways to ...More

A treatment pioneered at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research (CVR) is far more effective than traditional antibiotics at inhibiting the growth of drug-resistant bacteria, including so-called superbugs resistant to almost all existing antibiotics. The ...More

A new study finds a decrease in an emergent strain of the superbug methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) that is resistant to last line defense antibiotics. Researchers examined the prevalence of vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) infections in southeastern ...More

Sandia National Laboratories’ researchers Kelly Williams, left, and Corey Hudson look at the mosaic pattern of one of the Klebsiella pneumoniae plasmids and discuss mechanisms that mobilize resistance genes. Photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories A team ...More

In recent years, new strains of bacteria have emerged that resist even the most powerful antibiotics. Each year, these superbugs, including drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis and staphylococcus, infect more than 2 million people nationwide, and kill at least 23,000. ...More

Using genome sequencing, National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and their colleagues have tracked the evolution of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type 258 (ST258), an important agent of hospital-acquired infections. While ...More

The spread of antibiotic-resistance to one of the most pristine locations in Asia is linked to the annual human pilgrimages to the region, new research has shown. Experts from Newcastle University, UK, and the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi (IIT-Delhi), sampled ...More

Tests at two wastewater treatment plants in northern China revealed antibiotic-resistant bacteria were not only escaping purification but also breeding. Joint research by scientists from Rice University and two universities in China found superbugs carrying the ...More

Tests at two wastewater treatment plants in northern China revealed antibiotic-resistant bacteria were not only escaping purification but also breeding and spreading their dangerous cargo. Joint research by scientists from Rice, Nankai and Tianjin universities found ...More

A Penn Medicine researcher is among the winners of a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) “academic drug hunter” competition that will help fast track his lab’s work to stop drug-resistant bacteria. “Superbugs” are evolving faster than antibiotics can keep up with, and as a result more ...More